As a farmer’s child of the 1960’s, I was acutely aware of the mess adults made of the world. The cities were burning from race riots, friends were being killed in Viet Nam, and politicians were letting the Earth die. My news sources on the farm were late night AM radio, music, books, and Walter Cronkite. Life was a steady stream of reading, listening, and eventually protesting, when Dad and the chickens allowed it. Damn chickens.

The protesting life came to a head on Mayday 1971 when I stumbled into a high level, east coast organizational meeting of antiwar groups in the dining hall at Colgate University. Sadly, my life of organized protest ended when I showed up too late the next day for the storming of the Administration Hall. All my friends got arrested and I got to watch them get carted away. The close proximity to a possible felony–and a baton to the head– scared me straight and I took my disillusion on the road to pursue education in a non-traditional way.

Somewhere in the mid 1970’s, I was married, with two kids, and starting a great job with the state of New York. I began to feel positive about life in the United States and was slowly growing more confident about the future. Why? The Education. My track through the hallowed halls exposed me to others like me, who thought about things, and paid attention. We met in college dorms, YMCA gyms, beer gardens, and even strip clubs. Everyone seemed aware, thoughtful, and critical but with a positive vibe. It was as if everyone was determined to make a better life for themselves, and then for the world. Many did not have the college degree, but had the college/university exposure and could put coherent sentences together. At that level of involvement, with minds like that, the world was in great hands.

It appears the schools I attended, at every level, provided a way for me (and the people I met), to learn to see and think critically. To be active listeners as well as talkers. We were Compassionate Skeptics. My Generation was going to save the world one life at a time. And trees, too. I truly believed it.

It is an old man’s favorite lament: things aren’t like the old days. I don’t know how our country got from Compassionate Skeptics to Election Deniers. Or Flat Earthers. Or Fake Moon Landers. Maybe I was mistaken all those years ago. Delusional. But, um, like, I’m pretty sure, like, that I wasn’t, you know?

At my orientation meeting with 20 incoming freshmen in 1970 the University asked us what we came to College to accomplish. Many had a good idea of where the university could help them, but several of us said “We came here to be educated, to learn how to think, and to find out what we might want to be.” Education was for education’s sake. To learn. To grow. To be able to see.

To this day, I am skeptical of a young person, 17 or 18 years old who knows what he or she wants to be FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIFE. To be fair, I envy the early drive of doctors, and health care professionals, and Taylor Swift, but most of the students in 1970 who professed a certain career path were doing something else in 1976. At least they got a good enough Liberal Arts education to be able to determine what was best for them. Not so, these days. Liberal Arts education is as forbidden as DEI.

How can we teach kids to think? Don’t know, but maybe after 50 years of screwing it up, we can at least start trying to get it right. An educated populace will find it’s way and Make American Great Again, like it was in 1976.

And if we don’t, what do I care?